Swim Deep

by BETH KERY

  That night was the one where I think I started to believe in ghosts. Truly believe. Maybe ghosts were supernatural.

  Maybe they were just the haunts of our minds.

  That night, the dream returned. It was the same as before… terrifyingly the same. There was the similar dread and anticipation as I stared at the closed door in our room as it disappeared, transforming into a black void. There was the familiar horror at seeing her figure emerge from the absolute darkness, the smell of rotting flesh, the paralysis and mind-melting fear as she stood over me and slowly opened the hole of her mouth to speak. Water dripped on my cheek, the essence of her, the sensation horrifyingly real.

  All of it was the same.

  Except for the ending.

  Someone gripped my shoulder and shook me.

  “Anna. Anna, wake up.”

  My eyelids flew open at his command. I winced at the bright light, gasping. I reached out blindly, my flattened hand slapping against Evan’s chest. He felt warm and solid. I dug my fingertips slightly into his bare flesh, trying to ground myself. I realized he sat up partially in bed, the sheet draped across his lap, leaving his upper body exposed. He stared down at me, his dark eyebrows slanted in concern. A shudder went through me.

  “What happened?” I asked, still disoriented and agitated by the light and the residue of the nightmare.

  “You were screaming,” he said, his hand transferring to my upper arm. He squeezed slightly, as if, like me, he needed to feel my flesh. “No, not screaming exactly. More like you were trying to, but someone was choking you. Are you all right?”

  I glanced around the room. When my eyelids had first opened, it’d felt like a searchlight had been directed at my face. Now, I realized that Evan had only turned on a bedside lamp. It gave off a warm glow, casting our bedroom in a soft light. I had just been in this exact same place, in the nightmare. But this was an entirely different world.

  Still… that other world, that nightmare world existed. I knew that somehow, deep in my bones. It lay just beneath this one, a menacing shadow-world to the one where I lay here with my husband.

  I saw Evan’s concern, felt the tension of his body. But the vestiges of the dream still gripped at me. I rubbed my hand across my face, trying to clear away my weird thoughts like I would a clinging cobweb.

  “Anna? What were you dreaming about?”

  I opened my mouth to tell him about the nightmare woman who had taken to haunting me.

  His first wife.

  Instead, something else came out of my mouth.

  “Evan, why are we here? Just tell me.”

  He flinched back slightly. I thought I understood why, at least partially. My voice had sounded strange, like the nightmare had infused it with some otherworldly authority. I waited, holding my breath, sure he was about to repeat his former explanations. His face looked gray as he peered down at me, like the soft lamplight wasn’t strong enough to touch it.

  He released me, sat up, and swung his legs to the side of the bed. For a few seconds, I just watched in wonder and rising concern as he placed his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.

  “Evan?” I sat up and scooted toward him. I put my arms around his waist and pressed my cheek against his back. Still, I was ruthless. I craved an answer, or so I told myself. I kissed his bare skin.

  “Tell me why we really came to Les Jumeaux.”

  He inhaled, his ribcage expanding beneath my lips.

  “Do you really want to know?” he asked roughly.

  “Yes.”

  But I was lying. I know that now.

  “Because I’m sinful,” he mumbled.

  At least that’s what I thought he’d said.

  I stilled. I might have misunderstood his muttered words, but the grief that rang in his tone was obvious. Heartbreaking, somehow. I shivered and pressed closer to him, tightening my hold around his waist, trying to give him my heat, longing to absorb his pain. I didn’t understand what he’d meant. I suddenly didn’t want to.

  All I knew was that he was despondent, and I had made him feel that misery.

  “It was just a nightmare,” I whispered between kisses on his back. “I was still in it, I think, even after you woke me up. It’s better now.”

  He remained as still as a statue, locked in grief. I couldn’t stand it. I wanted him to confess his supposed sins to me, but I dreaded it, too. It struck me that the nightmare woman’s obscenely opening mouth made me feel the same way as I did in this moment: panicked. Like the ground was falling away from me, like my entire world was.

  “Come back to bed, Evan. Please.”

  He eventually lifted his head, as if he were awakening from a trance. I scooted back. Just as he was about to make eye contact with me, he turned out the light. We lay side by side in the darkness. He took my hand in his.

  “We’ll leave tomorrow, if you want to,” he said woodenly.

  I rolled onto my side and put my arm around him, cuddling close to his naked body.

  “I don’t want to go. I need to finish the series I’m painting, and I can’t do it anywhere else. But I’ll leave… if you want to,” I whispered.

  “We’ll stay, then,” he said after a pause. “For now.”

  I knew he didn’t sleep for a long time, because I was awake, too. I was glad for the sound of the wind howling and the rapid click-click-click of raindrops on the windows.

  It helped fill the gaping silence between us.

  Chapter Eight

  The next morning brilliant sunshine bathed every surface of the house, defying last night’s shadows and the fury of the storm. Evan came up behind me while I stood at one of the kitchen islands, my phone in my hand.

  “Who are you texting?” he asked, his gruff, warm voice near my ear causing a shiver to run down my neck and roughen my skin.

  “Valeria. I told her I’d text her the entry code to the garage and house this morning.”

  He cupped my hips with his hands and pressed his lips to my neck. I felt his body behind me, ghosting me elusively. I moved back, molding against him. I sighed.

  “Thank you for understanding about Valeria,” he said, kissing the shell of my ear.

  I turned my chin and nuzzled his jaw, seeking his lips. He found me. Our mouths fused, he turned me in his arms.

  “Are you okay?” he asked me a moment later between kisses on my cheeks and lips.

  “I’m great,” I told him. With the sunshine streaming around us, and in his embrace, I’d never been more sincere.

  He leaned back and met my stare.

  “I have told you before, and I mean it more now than I ever have. I want you to be happy, Anna.”

  “I am happy.”

  He regarded me soberly, his gray eyes softened by the sunshine.

  “Will you tell me about your nightmare?”

  I shook my head and buried my face in his chest, inhaling his spicy, clean scent. “I don’t want to think about that.” I rubbed my nose against his cotton shirt. He opened his hand at the back of my head, cradling me against him.

  “I’m sorry about last night. I was really out of it when you first woke me up,” I muttered.

  “Anna.”

  I heard the question in his voice and reluctantly looked up at him.

  “You don’t have to apologize. Just tell me about your nightmare.”

  “I don’t remember it.”

  His eyes had narrowed to gleaming crescents. “Have you had the nightmare before? Is it the reason you’ve been having trouble sleeping?”

  Two phone alerts chimed at once, one of them coming from Evan’s pocket. I raised my cell and saw that it was Valeria, texting me back.

  “She texted you as well,” I said, backing slightly out of Evan’s arms as I read Valeria’s message. I looked up at him and smiled brightly. “She’ll be here
before noon. I want to get up to the overlook before the light changes much. It’s incredible right now, after the storm.”

  He caught my hand as I started to turn away.

  “I’ll ask Valeria if she can make us lunch. Come back to the house at twelve-thirty, and we’ll have it on the terrace?”

  “Why don’t you come up to the overlook? I miss our picnics. You hardly come up to see me anymore, like you used to,” I said, reaching to stroke his jaw. I refused to be somber on this incandescent morning. I would not be reminded of the shadows… or Evan’s suffocating grief. “You’ll have me thinking you’re turned off by my paint smock.”

  “I happen to find your paint smock very sexy, especially since you wear next to nothing underneath it,” he murmured, leaning down to cup one of my butt cheeks beneath the edge of the shorts I wore and kiss the corner of my mouth, his stare going smoky. “But humor me, and come back to the house to have lunch with me today.”

  “It’s a date,” I murmured, caught by the warm promise in his eyes.

  Painting up on the overlook that Friday morning, it was hard to maintain my determined carefree attitude. I continually felt that tingle on the back of my neck, that telltale sign of being watched. But it was strictly my imagination. Every time I turned to peer at the South Twin, the windows remained empty. Noah Madaster was likely still at the hospital. I wondered how serious his condition was, and experienced that vague feeling of guilt that I’d contributed to his anguish and possibly worsened his health.

  By the time I set down my brush a little after noon, I was frustrated at my lack of concentration on my work. If we were going to stay at Les Jumeaux, I needed to forget about Noah Madaster. It was like Evan said. I had just as much a right to be there as Noah did.

  That’s what I was repeating to myself when I hit the stretch of rocky beach and started up the steps to Les Jumeaux. Out of the corner of my eye, movement caught my attention.

  “Hey!” I shouted, startled by what I saw. Two men were walking out of the boathouse, their arms filled with tanks and hoses: The scuba equipment we’d seen yesterday! I couldn’t believe it. They paused at my shout.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled over the sound of the surf.

  I hadn’t even got out the question before they were moving again, taking long strides along the beach and disappearing behind some boulders. I started to take off after them, but then recalled how big they’d seemed, even at a distance. Did I really want to confront two possibly dangerous thieves on a desolate stretch of beach, by myself?

  “What the hell?” I muttered, furious and disbelieving at the intrusion. Then it dawned on me that maybe Evan had hired someone to come down and get the equipment to make sure it was safe to use.

  When I walked into the kitchen, I saw Valeria standing behind the stove, holding a spatula. She greeted me warmly.

  “Welcome! Have you been finding your way around all right?” I asked, walking over to the sink and washing my hands.

  “Everything’s good so far,” she said before she confidently flipped what appeared to be two grilled sandwiches and set down her spatula to toss a salad. My mouth watered. “I hope grilled cheese sandwiches and salad is okay. Evan said supplies are a little low, since your grocery delivery doesn’t get here until tomorrow.”

  “It sounds great,” I said.

  “Valeria told me she’d go shopping in town for us, if we’d rather have someone pick out our produce and meat with a more discerning eye,” Evan said from behind me. I felt his arms encircling my waist. I spun in time to catch his kiss on my mouth instead of the back of my head.

  “I have a cousin who runs a stand at the weekly produce market. I’ll go there this afternoon, and then to the grocery store for the meat. The market is the best for first rate veg and fruit, though, and my cousin will give us a discount,” Valeria was saying behind us.

  “Produce market,” I said, looking over my shoulder. I could pick up some nutritious things for the old woman’s basket. “I’d love to go with you. Sounds nice.”

  “It is. They have great stuff there besides the produce: jewelry and flowers and crafts… ”

  “Where is the market?” Evan asked.

  “Just in Tahoe Shores,” Valeria said as she removed the golden brown sandwiches from the pan and placed them on plates. “We’ll have time to start inventorying the things in the boathouse after we get back, if you still want to, Anna.”

  “Oh, I nearly forgot,” I said, turning back to Evan. “Did you happen to send someone to the boathouse to get the scuba equipment cleaned and checked out?”

  His relaxed expression went hard. “What are you talking about?”

  “I saw two men hauling all the scuba equipment out of the boathouse just now, as I crossed the beach.”

  He hissed a curse, and without another word, headed toward the stairs and beach entrance to the house.

  “Evan?” I called, stunned by his furious intensity.

  “Stay here,” he barked in a perfunctory manner over his shoulder.

  “Why would someone take all the scuba equipment?” Valeria asked from behind me.

  “I have no idea,” I said, listening to Evan’s rapid footfalls on the stairs.

  I was on the verge of going after Evan when he didn’t return after ten minutes. But just when I started for the back entrance, and Valeria was calling she’d come with me, I heard the downstairs door open and close.

  Evan explained what had happened over lunch.

  He’d come upon the men, loading up the scuba equipment into a pick-up truck parked in the South Twin’s driveway.

  “I asked them what they hell they thought they were doing, hauling away my property right under my nose. I’ll be damned if they didn’t just keep going about their business, like I wasn’t even there,” he said, eating a mouthful of salad. I could tell by the slant of his jaw as he chewed that just the memory made his blood simmer all over again.

  “So what’d you do?” I remembered how I’d hesitated about going after the two men alone. They’d been in their thirties or early forties. They hadn’t had the bodies of athletes, necessarily. But they were big, beefy, rough-seeming guys, not the kind of men I’d wanted to confront about stolen property alone… or have my husband tangling with, either.

  “I told them that I knew who they were, and I’d report the theft to the police straightaway if they tried to leave with it,” Evan replied. “I said their license plate number out loud for good measure. I told them wouldn’t get ten miles out without being stopped. Maybe that was a bit of exaggeration on my part in regard to the local police department’s abilities. But it worked. I doubt either one of them wants to come face to face with the police with stolen goods in their truck, given their likely criminal records.”

  “Likely criminal records? You knew them?”

  He gave a little shrug, his eyes taking on a hard, silvery gleam.

  “I knew one of them. I recognized him, anyway… some stoner thug three years ahead of me in school, Frank Sharpton. He was already dabbling in theft, assault, and small-time drug dealing back in high school. He’s turned out even worse than I would have predicted he would. The other one looked rougher than Frank did.”

  “What happened after you said what you did?”

  “They brought the stuff back to the boathouse and put it back where it belonged.”

  I gave a short laugh at his matter-of-fact response.

  “Just like that? They just followed your orders?” I asked disbelievingly. “I would have thought a guy like the one you’re describing would have done the exact opposite of what you wanted, once you confronted him.”

  “Men like that are much more obliging to authority than you would think, once the rules are made clear.”

  “And the rules involve… what? Money? Intimidation? The threat of prosecution?”

  “All thr
ee, I’d say,” he said briskly, eating another bite of salad. “In this case, I guessed correctly that the latter would be the best place to apply pressure.”

  I set down my fork. I’ll admit to being a little amazed—intimidated?—by his casual show of ruthlessness in a confrontation with two men who were probably very familiar with violence and crime. He glanced at me and did a double take.

  “What? Don’t tell me you’re feeling sorry for them?”

  “No, of course not. I agree with you. My impression of them was that they were pretty rough. Not to mention the fact that we caught them in the act of stealing. I didn’t want to go out after them.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t,” he said with a sharp glance.

  I chewed thoughtfully for a moment. I realized I was startled at seeing this new side of him. Evan was very fit, confident… physically tough. I’d never for a second imagined that he didn’t get precisely what he wanted in most cases. I hadn’t previously imagined him being conniving or cold-blooded, as I supposed he’d had to be, going head to head with men like that. But of course it made sense. Evan must have a hard, aggressive side to his persona. He hadn’t gotten to be an extremely successful businessman being a pushover.

  “They are the type of men motivated by money or power, you say,” I said as I fiddled with my salad. “So it follows that Noah Madaster must have paid them to remove the equipment, doesn’t it? He saw me going inside the boathouse yesterday, and he believes I trespassed. He might believe I stole from him, and was trying to move the valuable property to another location before I returned for more.”

  “I don’t care what he believes. He’s wrong.”

  “I realize that. But still… Madaster must have hired those men to come here.”

  He didn’t respond for a few seconds until he’d swallowed.

  “That’s the assumption I’m going on, yes,” he finally said.

  “Evan, do you think Madaster is going to continue to try and undermine us living here?”